Security systems in retail & distribtion centres

Security opportunities in retail shops and distribution centres

Video transcript:

Hello, my name is Buzz Coates, Norbain Security Solutions Specialist

and in our first series of market opportunities,

we'll be talking about retail industry today.

And in this video, we're going to be talking about retail in High Street

and distribution centres, and what the solutions and opportunities are.

As we all know, it has been quite tough for retail in the last couple of years,

but we are still seeing retail people looking for solutions

and opportunities in order to make sure they still make nice profits.

And some of the trends we are seeing for retail

is that distribution centres are on the increase,

because there still is that capacity for more online shopping.

But also what we have seen, hopefully it will carry on

as a resurgence in the high street behaviour from customers.

So some of the trends that we are seeing

is still the continued use of EPOS - Electronic Point Of Sale,

whereby they use that in order to restock, to see refunds,

to see void, miss-reads, etc, etc.

And that's all about making sure that shrinkage stays to a bare minimum.

So another trend we are seeing is the use of fisheye cameras,

whereby they will stick a fisheye on the ceiling

and that overcomes blind spots.

So typically, if you have normal cameras just looking down the aisles,

you can have blind spots.

Fisheye is overhead, so it looks down as a bird eye view.

So you start to see what people really are doing in your retail arena.

The good thing about it is once you start to take on some of the analytics

that are built into some fisheye cameras -

and you have to be careful, not all fisheye cameras are all the same -

but some of the analytics that we do see used are

people counting, queue analysis

and also from a point of view of heat mapping.

So if you want to know where people are going in your store,

you get a very quick map output to see where those people have been,

and where the hotspots and the hotspots are not

So fisheye cameras, great for general observation, but be very, very careful.

because all you're really gonna see is a top of people's heads.

And in my case, you better make sure you've got wide dynamic range,

because a lot of glare comes off with this head.

But the point is, yeah, all joking aside,

you're not going to get facial fits - your 10/15 degree angle

that you need in order to get good facial recognition,

you're not going to get that from fisheyes - they're up on the ceiling.

Another great little product that we have seen recently used quite a bit

is the PVMs - Public Viewing Monitors

and they come in various shapes and sizes.

But typically where you see them in retail is on the self-checkout tills,

so to make sure that you are doing what you should be doing.

But also at the same time, you can put adverts on there,

which means extra revenue.

Also, from the point of view of some of your areas of interest may be

beers, wines and spirits or places where you've got razor blades, high values.

A little PVM just stood there will just remind the individual

that actually you are being recorded.

Another trend - final one on this part - is the actual ANPR

that is being used now, because a lot of retailers just on the outskirts of town,

tend to find that they do get people who park in their car parks all day.

And of course, that can be bad business,

because if you imagine you're driving past their retail outlets,

and the carpets full, you're probably going to drive on to the next one instead.

So the chances are you're missing great revenue.

So ANPR takes your number plate, two hours to stay,

if you're not gone within two hours, you're probably going to get a ticket.

So another reason why we should be maybe looking

at using ANPR in those circumstances.

So one of the trends with videos that we will see used

a lot, lot more over the next year is definitely going to be analytics,

because cameras are becoming more powerful.

With better microprocessors and analytics becoming more affordable,

we'll definitely see that trend carrying on.

And some of those analytics will be based around what we've seen already,

ie. behavioural analysis.

It'll also be about things like queue management,

because if you want your customer to experience

a good day at the retail outlet,

the last thing they want to do is buy all their shopping

get to the till and it's absolutely jam-packed.

So there's lots of things, where processes, where businesses

will be looking up to make sure that they cost cut where they can.

But also on top of that, other analytics that we will start to see -

which is a bit of a hot potato -

and one of them, which is facial recognition.

Because end-of-day, if you know that you have an offender

coming into your premises, it would be nice to know

you can get management out there, or someone out there,

just to say hello, we're here - that sort of scenario.

But also from a point of view of behavioural analysis,

we'll start to see actually that people who do shoplift,

does cause problems.

And they do show various obvious patterns of

a quick look over the left, quick look over the right,

out goes hand, in it goes.

That can be witnessed quite well through analytics

and we believe those sort of trends will carry on in the next year or so.

And speaking of customer experiences, there’s another trend

that we are seeing where audio is now starting to go away

from being used as analogue into IP.

So background music, PA announcements, etc, etc.

Audio over IP is a way that is starting to see another trend in the industry.

That's what we are seeing.

So when it comes to access control and intruder systems,

we see within intruder systems, nothing's really changed

a great deal there at the moment,

because it's a very good solution that gets offered,

you have to appreciate that some retail outlets never get set

apart from Christmas Day.

However, smaller ones will still be very much set at a certain time

and then that's handled by an alarm receiving centre in the evening.

With access control, we have seen a few changes.

So typically, your request to exit now used to be

the green button or the press to exit.

That's now changed to be seen that we use more

of the IR controlled no touch request to exit.

And we have also seen the use of traffic lights,

whereby people are counted as they go into a store.

And if there's too many people in the store, you get a red light -

you have to wait until the green light comes on.

And then you can enter the building.

And one trend we have also seen which basically works in larger superstores,

but also distribution, is the use of panoramics.

Now, please remember, panoramic is not the same as a fisheye, okay -

they tend to be used outdoors, but not always -

they can be used in large internal spaces as well.

And the beauty of these is you've got one camera,

which basically has four sensors, from two megapixels up to five megapixels,

giving you a 360 view in a car park.

Because the trouble is with the PTZ, you've got lots of blind spots.

as soon as you zoom into one area, that's it -

you don't see anything else around it.

And so with a 360 panoramic, the view is always there.

And the good thing about panoramic as well

is they do come with analytics.

So if you want to have things which are of interest to you,

you've got an added bonus there as well.

So an example of that could well be your’ll want to use object classification.

So it could be that you want to search for red cars of a certain type.

And that might be something that's because it's caused a damage

to another person's car or something similar.

So in distribution centres, we see a lot of use for 360 cameras,

especially the panoramic ones again,

but also from a point of view that what we have seen

is more and more use of PID systems.

So perimeter intruder detection systems,

we are starting to choose to see radar being used quite a bit.

But also if it's a real high-value stock bonded distribution centre,

you're probably going to have other bits of equipment

that are used similar to like Fence Guard, and similar products like that.

So within distribution centres,

cameras are not only just used for security reasons,

they are also used for health and safety reasons.

And that is because we've got to make sure that staff

within those environments are going on about their business

with good practices at all time.

And what we also see in distribution centres is the use of ANPR

for gaining access into the site for workers.

But also then from our point of view, with that built in

with intercoms for visitors,

because one thing we do see within this environment

is the green access trend.

And what I mean by that is moving away from issuing cards and fobs,

but actually to QR codes or to a QR code sent to a mobile phone,

which you can use as your access, which has been granted

by someone from the distribution centre.

So if you'd like to find out more,

either head to our website - norbain.com;

or YouTube, on Norbain TV;

or even better - how about give us a call.